


Can't breathe (I'm waiting for the exhale)

by komkommertijd



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Feelings, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, Mental Health Issues, Phone Calls & Telephones, References to Depression, aka more introspective!Dan and me fucking up life, or maybe not idk if this makes sense, set in some season in the future that won't ever happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25882753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komkommertijd/pseuds/komkommertijd
Summary: “I need help.” He hates the way his voice wavers and then breaks like the ocean tide against the coast. His fingers are trembling again and he really, really tries not to cry right there and then. His chest feels unbelievably tight. He can't breathe, waits for the exhale. It never comes.
Relationships: Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen (past), Lando Norris & Daniel Ricciardo, Michael Italiano & Daniel Ricciardo
Comments: 14
Kudos: 59





	Can't breathe (I'm waiting for the exhale)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been stuck in a rut of "I hate everything I write and on top of that myself" lately and this is the first thing I've actually finished in a week. 
> 
> I don't know whether any of this makes sense? Probably not but I just needed to vomit all those words and thoughts into an empty document to clear up my mind a bit in hopes of finding new motivation somewhere. I genuinely hope that someone will understand and/or like it anyway, that would mean the absolute world to me.
> 
> The drug use mentioned is really only about medicine that helps with sleeping issues but I tagged it just to be sure. There are some things implying unhealthy eating habits as well which felt too minor to tag but worthy a warning nevertheless. Please proceed with caution as always. Tagged Teen And Up for mild swearing, apologies for that one, kids.
> 
> Have fun with this and stay safe :)
> 
> (Title and inspiration from [Wishing Well](https://open.spotify.com/track/2U5WueTLIK5WJLD7mvDODv?si=Rnc0KXwKTtaLGPsz6q2hTg) by Juice WRLD. May he rest easy.)

“Daniel?”

The line stays silent, static crackling while Daniel tries to catch his breath, frantically sucking fresh air in and yet unable to swallow it down. His throat feels tight, like invisible fingers are wrapping around it and holding him with a vice-like grip. His own fingers tremble around the phone, like his hand is falling asleep. He can't do this, he never could.

“Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me.”

* * *

The bottle still rests where Daniel has left it before, when Michael called him and the noise of his ringtone ripped through the thick silence in the apartment. Orange against the cold white of the sink, shimmering in the light of the street lamps trying to take a look at what is going on inside the dark room. Daniel has no energy left in him to turn on the light and yet he feels wired, full of energy and thoughts and ideas that bounce from one side of his head to the other, keeping him awake and painting dark stripes underneath his eyes.

It rattles when he lifts it up and it looks almost small in his palm, unimpressive. He pops one of the white pills into his mouth and moves his head into a rather inconvenient position to swallow it down with some water from the tap. When he lifts his head back up, he is forced to look at himself in the mirror, tired eyes, beard slowly growing a tad bit too long. He should wash his hair. And maybe take a shower and change his shirt while he's at it. He takes one look at the shower, feels his shoulders slump with the lack of motivation, turns off the water, dries his hands with a towel he should definitely wash, screws the cap back on the bottle and leaves it by the sink.

Falling asleep is a bit easier that night. His stomach feels like the void he would want his head to be and Daniel tries to remember when he last had a proper meal. It feels like it was ages ago.

No unread messages, no calls besides Michael's, no one who actually cares, then why should he? It's a convenient way of thinking, that it doesn't matter anyway, that nothing he does matters in the end. It's a comfortable way of thinking, easier than trying to figure out what's wrong with him and why his eyes burn every time he thinks of the past and the happy days.

* * *

“You know I can't do that, mate. I've booked a flight for next week, I'm coming over.”

“Don't do that, it's alright.”

Nothin is alright. Michael hums and seems to know what's going on in Daniel's head. It's unfair because Daniel has no fucking clue what's going on up there. He tries to figure it out, he really does, but every thought he tries to hold onto escapes him before he can understand its meaning, slipping through his fingers like smoke and dust. There is not one coherent thought up there, not a single one he understands. To think that Michael knows that chaos better than him feels like losing another piece of control that snakes through his prying fingers. Even his thoughts don't want to be with him, it seems.

“I don't want you to worry.”

“That doesn't really stop me.”

* * *

It's already January when he finally charges his laptop and reads through his emails. It takes two cups of coffee to convince himself to answer to them but once he hits send on the first one, it slowly starts working. The next email feels a bit easier to write, the words coming to his mind with less force and spilling on the screen of his laptop. The movements of his fingers across the keyboard become faster and he wastes less time thinking about what words to pick, doesn't doublecheck their spelling anymore, just pours it all into his replies. He wishes everything in life would be this easy.

Michael still isn't coming over as requested by Daniel himself so he doesn't comment on his absolute shit appearance but he sends him videos and instructions to prepare Daniel for the upcoming season and as much as Daniel would want to avoid training, he also doesn't feel like fucking his entire season up and giving everyone just all the more reason to drag him through the dirt.

It forces him to leave his apartment, too, to go grocery shopping. Michael annoys him with daily calls, checking up on Daniel to know whether he ate or not, how he feels after the training. They both know he means something else behind the casual health checkup but Daniel doesn't say anything more than vague things and shrugged shoulders and Michael never presses any further than that. It works and yet it doesn't and Daniel wants to tell him, he wants to tell him so badly but he can't find the right words for it, for the things he feels and doesn't feel. His head hurts with it, he feels like throwing up.

* * *

“Take care of yourself, alright?”

“I am.”

“I don't feel like I can believe that, Dan.”

He should feel relieved now that Michael hangs up. He doesn't and he has no clue why. His heart feels heavy and breathing becomes hard once again. His sight blurs. Daniel doesn't want to lie, not to Michael of all people. It feels wrong and he's uncomfortable in his skin but he doesn't want Michael to worry about him. Neither should anyone else worry, it makes him feel guilty for not being better, for being such a burden to all of them.

It's not like he doesn't want to talk about it, but besides never finding quite the right words to describe his situation, he also doesn't know who to tell about it, doesn't know who cares enough to take it seriously. He knows Michael does but Daniel feels like he needs to tell someone else, like he needs another friend to talk to, someone else who he can share his pain with, who listens and tries to help. It doesn't even have to work in the end, he doesn't desperately need to find a solution to his misery, he just needs to breathe again; he's been waiting for the exhale for too long.

* * *

“Maybe you should talk to Max,” Lando suggests when Daniel calls him in the middle of the night barely days before they're both flying out to Barcelona for testing. Daniel is not really surprised to find Lando still awake at that time of the day, Lando's sleeping habits do concern him slightly, especially because Lando has the privilege of actually being able to fall asleep. He hums in reply because his mind is trying to come up with an argument against that. He gives up after a while, he hasn't had a clear thought in weeks now.

“Yeah. I'll just call the one person I haven't spoken to since last October and pour my heart out to them. If I wanted bad advice I would've called Michael.”

Lando threatens to hang up briefly and sighs into the microphone. It echoes through the darkness of Daniel's bedroom. He should really go to sleep. He's tired, so exhausted from his life, but there's no way he's falling asleep now, head still busy with working through God knows what. It's so frustrating and calling Lando doesn't do much to help him.

“Hate to break it to you honey but you miraculously ended up in the same team again. Just in case you forgot about that, you'll have to talk anyways.”

Suddenly he wishes he was the one leaving for Mercedes, not Lando. Dealing with George would be way easier than dealing with Max again, who might eat him alive, even in a less toxic environment. He feels a headache hammering faintly in his forehead when he's reminded of that clusterfuck again. Daniel likes to blame his recent behavior on that, on Max and that stupid crash, and how obvious his move to McLaren seemed after they won a championship and left Red Bull behind to suffer in third place. It pissed him off, but he also knows that it's everything but the reason for his own issues.

“I will end you for that move,” he replies because it creates less damage than an actual answer. Because Lando can take a joke and the confirmation comes with a chuckle and a reminder of how much Mercedes made them sweat the past year with the few points dividing them in the championship. Daniel hums again. He doesn't want to elaborate this now. He's getting tired of social interaction. Lando seems to sense it and hangs up soon after.

Silence fills the apartment again. Somewhere outside an engine roars in the night. Daniel reaches for the pill bottle and falls asleep with his inner conflict looming in every corner of his room.

* * *

“Mikey?”

“Don't fucking call me tha-”

“I need help.” He hates the way his voice wavers and then breaks like the ocean tide against the coast. His fingers are trembling again and he really, really tries not to cry right there and then. His chest feels unbelievably tight. He can't breathe, waits for the exhale. It never comes.

“I know. Fuck, I'm sorry.”

Daniel doesn't know why Michael apologizes, he doesn't know whose fault it actually is. He thinks he doesn't care as long as he figures it out, somehow. If only he knew how to fix himself.

* * *

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks, you haven't changed much either.”

Max actually appears concerned, standing there in front of Daniel in the white shirt that looks so unusual on him still. He looks older too, but maybe that's what a shit car does to people. Daniel wonders whether that is why he used to feel so exhausted at Renault all the time. As if he's feeling that much better right now. Maybe it's not the car's fault entirely.

“Just- if you actually need someone to talk to about, you know, stuff, I'm always next door.”

Daniel nods and feels reminded of times that are distant and so far away from what is today that he barely sees them clearly anymore. He wants to talk to Max, to fix this, them, himself. He just can't because his stupid head doesn't let him, because all he ever gets out is a hum and a shrug and an “it be like that sometimes” if anyone asks, because he's so exhausted and tired of existing and doing this stuff over and over again, because he doesn't know whether Max actually cares. He's going to be wiping the floor with him in a month's time again, as if this is something that concerns him.

“I miss the old you.”

Daniel has never agreed with Max more than now.

* * *

“Something inside me feels broken. It's like … a loose part in the car during a race and I know it's there but I have no fucking idea where it is and what it does to me and it kinda ruins my race but I can't do much about it. And I can't properly tell the mechanics because I don't even know what to tell them, there's no precise information that could help them to fix me- my car.”

“That's a good starting point though isn't it?”

“I don't know, Michael. That's the issue, I don't know anything because there's nothing that makes sense in my head. I can't talk about shit I don't even understand, I don't know how to make you, or Max, or literally anyone understand.”

Michael frowns like he doesn't have any idea how to fix the car either. He probably doesn't, Daniel appreciates that he's trying it anyway.

* * *

It's a decent podium and it's Australia and what else could he probably want? He smiles through the day and somehow slowly eases back into bantering with Max and Lando boxes his shoulder for beating him. He shouldn't feel so uncertain about it all, like something's missing, like what he did there was not more than anyone expected from him. Most reporters seem surprised he didn't retire after winning one championship. He doesn't quite know why he's still there either.

He spends the evening on his hotel bed, lights turned off but curtains wide open, Melbourne city lights illuminating the room in an almost comfortable glow and he slowly spins the bottle in his hands, the see-through orange catching the light. The pills inside clatter against the plastic as Daniel shifts it time and time again, gravity is a weird invention. The airconditioning is turned up higher than needed and tries to chase the barely even there autumn heat out of the room. The mattress is too hard and the blanket too itchy, the material scratching against his skin. He wants to get out of there so badly, suffocating in his loneliness.

It is actually still warm outside, warm air lingering in the city, sunlight-soaked pavement underneath his feet as he roams the streets of Melbourne. It's not home, not quite, not right, but Daniel can't do anything about it, so he figures he might as well try to enjoy whatever tiny glimpse of normality he can get. Cars driving past, people chatting on the sidewalks, fratboys being their idiotic selves on a Sunday night. He tries to flourish in the anonymity of the city for as long as he can, this place that is cramped with people pouring out of clubs and bars and filling every street and every apartment, this place where he's not alone and yet no one recognizes him – if they do, no one says anything about it, for which he is grateful.

He walks as far as his feet can carry him and then he walks further and the stars are barely visible over the city lights and smog but they're there and they feel closer than ever as Daniel keeps walking. He feels the way his shoes rub against his ankles, the sweat clinging to his skin, the warm air on his face. He smells the concrete and the heated glass and various different kinds of foods, hears street musicians and hip hop blasted from expensive speakers in even more expensive cars. And somehow, it feels like something inside him shifts back into place, slowly but steady, it's a process and Daniel is willing to go through it if it means finally feeling like himself again.

He calls Max and while he waits for his former ex-teammate to pick up the phone, he tries to come up with something to say. Max's voice is almost silent against the bassline of some party song booming in the background and it's nice to know that at least one of them celebrates the team podium properly.

“I'm sorry, for everything.”

Max doesn't reply at first and Daniel checks the signal, thinking about how much this phone call is going to cost him and how much Max will have to pay for using the local network providers and figures he doesn't care, it's just money, they have too much of that anyway.

“Yeah, yeah me too.”

And Daniel briefly wonders whether he's still in love with his teammate after all, whether there's still something underneath the layers of rubble and debris inside himself.

“Okay. We'll be okay, right?”

* * *

“This is stupid.”

“Probably, yeah. But mate, it's better than nothing.”

Daniel looks back down to where the coin lays in his hand, shining silver against tan skin. Michael silently watches from the side, not daring to interrupt Daniel's thoughts now that they're finally becoming less abstruse and abstract. It's noon in Monaco and the sunlight is burning down on them as tourists try to take pictures.

It's fucking ridiculous is what it is. Daniel knows that and Michael does, too, but it's some kind of method that is supposed to motivate Daniel into thinking more positively again or simply think clearly, if that's all it does Daniel will feel more than successful. Right now it feels like something that will do everything but work.

He sighs before he closes his eyes and clutches the coin in his hand, feels the weight against the palm, and tries to focus on nothing but that until his head is a void around the money. When he opens his eyes and tosses it into the fountain, Michael smiles next to him. Daniel blinks a few more times to get used to the sun again and then he looks for where the coin has sunken into the water. It did feel a bit like throwing it all away, all the pain, all his wishes, and dreams, like he drowned it all with that stupid 50 Australian cents to start new, without it weighing him down.

“It was worth a try, right?”

Daniel thinks that it's always worth a try but he doesn't tell Michael that, he probably knows anyway.

* * *

Los Angeles towers over the horizon, far away from where Daniel is sitting, dressed in a blue sweater that is too warm for the weather and too tasteless to be his own, legs dangling off the edge of the mountain. The stars are brighter here and they're the same as in Melbourne and in Montreal and in Zandvoort and the pill bottle feels almost foreign in his grip. Daniel doesn't entirely know what he's thinking, what he's feeling, everything's blurry and bland and so far away from him that it seems like the skyline fading into blinding lights and darkness is a million miles away from where Daniel is glued to the ground.

Michael would probably die if Daniel as much as tried to get him to sit there with him and Lando would pretend to shove him off the edge and Max- he doesn't want to think about that and the sweater feels more and more uncomfortable by the second. He should probably give it back to him but that would be weird and things have been so weird between them for so long. He wants to toss the bottle off the cliff, reminds himself not to litter because the plastic isn't exactly good for the environment, and shoves it into the pocket of his shorts.

When he gets up and looks down the edge, it's just one more step. A single step and then … nothing. Daniel doesn't want nothing, he wants late nights and early mornings, fresh sheets to wake up in, waffles for breakfast, another title, another inside joke with Lando, another chance to bully Jüri, another breath, another minute, another lifetime of experiences and feelings and thoughts and crazy moments and he wants and wants and wants.

He can't breathe with how overwhelming that flood of emotions and thoughts is, with the weird feeling of something tugging on his heart. It's too much and not enough at once and Daniel has never craved like this, has never felt so deeply and realized so much and accepted it all like this, like it's nothing, like it's the easiest thing to ever do, the only logical consequence.

He can't breathe -

and then he exhales.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I love you for that <3
> 
> (You can also find me on [Tumblr](https://komkommertijd.tumblr.com/) if you want!)


End file.
